


Ephemera

by Lomonaaeren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, M/M, POV Female Character, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 20:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny Weasley understood things about Draco Malfoy’s pursuit of Harry that Harry never would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ephemera

**Author's Note:**

> This was written several years ago as for the community hd_500, for prompts left by themarisa: to use the words _nail polish, linen, hand sanitizer_ and the dialogue, “Vagina, I don't even like saying the word. It sounds vulgar and threatening just as a noun.” The title and some of the imagery are taken from a poem by Yeats.

  
It was the small things that mattered. The fleeting things. The things that melted on the air like snowflakes, that scattered like tossed leaves, that drifted away from them like strands of Ginny’s hair away from her face when she and Harry walked in the park near their house on a windy day.  
  
Things like the turn of a wrist, the delicate scrape of her nails down Harry’s palm, the smiles she gave him and he gave her. Things like the linen that she kept fresh and sweet-smelling in the cupboard outside the loo by using simple household charms on it, because she knew that Harry liked to open the door and stand breathing in the cleanliness when he thought no one was looking. Things like the way Harry would sometimes reach out to touch her cheek, his face solemn but his _eyes_ shining.   
  
She had to look for Harry’s smile in all sorts of unusual places.  
  
That was what Draco Malfoy didn’t understand. He wanted Harry because of the big, obvious things, the scar and the glittering fame and probably the green eyes, if the way he stared at Harry’s face was any indication. But if that was all he sought after, then Harry wouldn’t stay with him.   
  
Ginny had decided not to be worried about the man’s flirtation until Malfoy started to notice the fleeting things.   
  
*  
  
“Vagina, I don't even like saying the word. It sounds vulgar and threatening just as a noun.”  
  
Ginny knew it was Malfoy’s voice without looking around. She stood on the other side of the large room in which the Annual House-Elf Benefits Ball was held, sipping from a glass of frothy pumpkin juice— _someone_ had to keep her wits about her, no matter how much Harry drank—and watching the tally of donations on the wall. Hermione had come up with a clever spell that changed numbers on the board there as fast as Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts were dropped into the large barrels before it, and which even kept track of private cheques written to the House-Elf Benefits Organization. It gave Ginny quiet satisfaction to know that so many people wanted to give money that would work to destroy the old pure-blood families’ grip on their servants, and force them to grow up and use household charms like normal people.  
  
She might have thought more sympathetically of the Hogwarts students who would be forced to cook their own meals and tend to their own messes, but considering the sort of student who seemed to be coming out of the school lately—sulky and bored and unwilling to work—maybe it was just what they needed.  
  
There was an embarrassed silence following Malfoy’s loud declaration, and then the sound of scrambling. Ginny smiled and held out her hand without taking her gaze from the tally in front of her. A moment later, Harry’s hand fell into hers, their fingers entwining.  
  
“Can you _believe_ him?” Harry hissed into her ear. “I don’t care how upset he is that the _Prophet_ pegged him as gay. That was a disgusting thing to say.”  
  
Ginny tipped her head back until her hair brushed Harry’s shoulder and murmured, “Well, after those photographs, he really can’t deny that he finds men attractive. I’d think this is an attempt to recoup his pride the only way he knows how.”  
  
She _knew_ that was Malfoy’s rationale—one of them. He wouldn’t let people laugh at him for being caught with another man on the eve of his arranged marriage; he’d declare high and low that he never wanted a woman anyway, and that the problem lay with them, not him.   
  
And, of course, he made the statement to test Harry’s reaction, hoping to see a spark of agreement in his eyes.  
  
A ringing noise echoed through the room, so loud that Ginny was not at first sure what it was. Then she glanced around and saw a tall, blonde woman with a flowing gown stalking away from Malfoy.   
  
Who was staggering, one hand clasped to his cheek, where a red handprint was sprouting.  
  
Harry laughed into her ear. “It looks like his marriage with Astoria Greengrass is _definitely_ off, then.”  
  
Ginny laughed back and turned her head so that her mouth rested close to his ear. “Take me home?” she whispered. “I don’t think anything we’ll see this evening will top that, and we’ve put in a long enough public appearance.”  
  
Harry nodded willingly and started steering Ginny towards the door. Ginny managed to glance sideways from under her lashes and saw Malfoy staring after them, his face bewildered and hungry.  
  
 _He has no idea why he can’t court Harry. He has no idea why Harry would prefer to leave a place where he’s just made a scene rather than stay._  
  
This was an occasion where Malfoy thought a thing was _too_ small. Ginny permitted herself a smile and a few high steps, though that was partially to shake her feet out, which had become uncomfortable in the fancy shoes that were thought appropriate for Harry Potter’s date. She really didn’t need to worry about him until he gained some sense of scale.  
  
*  
  
Harry’s childhood marked him. Ginny never realized how much until she saw that he had greedily absorbed every tale of her childhood she could give him, even the ones that made Ron look terrible, but never said a word about his own.   
  
Harry was someone who needed a family, because he’d never had one. Harry was someone who needed a time of innocence, a period of playfulness, a protected home where he could relax and smile, because Ginny might not know much about those awful Muggles, but she did know that they didn’t give him any of that.  
  
He spent a lot of time simply lying close to her after they’d had sex, playing with her hair and kissing her shoulder. He didn’t always want to cuddle with her; he had problems with hugs and embraces, as if he thought they were all like Hagrid’s and would stave his ribs in. But simple touches, small touches, fleeting touches—he loved all of them, and Ginny had nothing to complain of in that area, though she knew many women did.  
  
Because she had wanted that from and for him, too, she was satisfied. And she watched Malfoy with some pity, because he was too selfish. Even if he could have given Harry what Harry needed, he would have drained it all out again with his own demands.   
  
Malfoy needed to be pampered. Harry needed to be cared for. They were opposites in that way, as in so many others, and would never suit.  
  
*  
  
Ginny raised an eyebrow when she and Harry stepped into the rebuilt Hogwarts for the second anniversary dinner to celebrate the end of the war. _This_ was new.  
  
Harry didn’t understand much of beauty, himself; the only thing he cared about as far as his hair went was that it should conceal his scar, and he refused to give up his glasses because then his eyes would be one more thing the world could see clearly by looking at him. But he liked to look at beauty. And Ginny liked being beautiful. (She never objected to aspects of being a girl like fancy dress robes and nail polish; she only objected when her mother tried to make those _all_ she was. She could still play Quidditch, and she could have fought in the final battle, thank you very much). So she wore sweeping green robes that trailed behind her in a slight train, and a gathered net of small gold chains, set with emeralds, that had been a birthday present from Harry in her hair, and deep red nail polish. Her shoes were a little less ridiculous this time, since she expected to be dancing.  
  
And Malfoy had come in royal blue robes that trailed off into white as they led towards the floor, making him look as if he sailed through a cascade of sea-foam. Ginny had to grudgingly admit he looked stunning, especially with some sort of spell he’d cast to make his face shine as if attracting moonlight. And he didn’t spend so much time looking at Harry, which meant Harry spent a little more time looking at him, in surprise and admiration.  
  
Ginny kept closer to Harry than normal that evening, talking with him about Quidditch—Ron would ordinarily have done the same thing, but he was home sick—and coaxing him gently into one of the slower dances, where not as many people would have to see that he still didn’t move very well. Harry stumbled, and only stepped on her shoes twice. Each time, he flushed so red and apologized so loudly that Ginny was certain he would attract the attention he meant to avoid.  
  
Halfway through a slow and stately dance that Harry liked because it mostly meant they were advancing side by side instead of stepping close to each other or whirling around in complicated patterns, Ginny caught sight of Malfoy. He hadn’t taken the time to enter this dance, as she’d thought he might; his date was a handsome enough dark-haired young man with an awkward grin but fine legs. He was leaning against the far wall instead, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes burning into Harry.  
  
Harry turned just then, and followed Ginny’s gaze. She heard him swallow nervously, and then he swore. “Why is the ponce looking at _me_?”  
  
Ginny smiled. She and Harry had reached the end of the “corridor” created by the dancing and were coming back the other way, bowing and smiling to the people they passed. “Perhaps he simply thinks you’re handsome. Did you notice how much his current boyfriend looks like you?”  
  
Harry actually stopped for a moment. Ginny leaned against him patiently and looked up into his face. He wore an expression of mixed surprise and disgust which a moment later gave way to anger.  
  
“Do you think—“  
  
“Well, I wouldn’t have remarked on it if he wasn’t staring at you,” said Ginny peaceably, shrugging. She whirled Harry into the next part of the dance, leading; Harry kept craning his head around her to glare at Malfoy. “There are lots of dark-haired men here. But it does look as if he has a Harry substitute, doesn’t it?”  
  
Harry turned away, looking ill. Ginny nodded in satisfaction. The one thing Harry wanted even more than he wanted a family and a childhood was to be loved for _himself_. And Malfoy wouldn’t do a very good job of that.  
  
It wasn’t a bad thing to remind Harry of it. Just in case he ever was tempted.  
  
*  
  
Fleeting things.  
  
Harry took her hand as they wandered through the middle of Diagon Alley looking for a shop that Hermione had told them about. Ginny smiled and said nothing; saying anything would make Harry wonder if he was supposed to be doing it. Gestures of affection didn’t come easily to him, at least in public. He always had to wonder what the _Prophet_ would say about it.   
  
Harry brushed the leaves out of her hair one afternoon when they walked in the park, and then leaned in to kiss her. Ginny closed her eyes and absorbed his kiss, gentle and cool as the lap of the lake water at Hogwarts on a sunny day.  
  
Harry brushed her shoulder with his hand, or hugged her with one arm when she came into the kitchen whilst he was cooking, or drew her near when they went over to Hermione’s flat and watched the Muggle telly she’d bought. Ginny felt supreme contentment at such moments. Harry did those things because he wanted to, not because Ginny nagged him into them; Hermione sometimes confessed to her how hard it was to get a gesture like that out of Ron.  
  
And he did them because he was satisfied with her, because he wanted _her_. Could Malfoy make him contented? Ginny doubted it. Maybe, if Harry was inclined that way, they could have a love affair as passionate as their hatred had been, but Ginny always saw such a thing burning to ashes in her mind’s eye and Harry returning to her. Malfoy would try to make a fleeting thing last, and that was his major problem. He didn’t understand ephemera.  
  
*  
  
“—and I think _that’s_ the major reason that pure-bloods and Muggleborns are still having problems.”  
  
Ginny frowned as she picked her way through the Three Broomsticks, looking for Harry. She’d found the note he left her when she got back from practice with the Harpies, saying he was going to the pub to meet Ron and Hermione for dinner. Hearing Malfoy’s voice here was a surprise.  
  
And there was Harry, leaning an elbow on a table and frowning at Malfoy, who sat opposite him. At least Harry was still _frowning_ , but Ginny had to admit, seeing so much concentrated attention from him, focused on _Malfoy_ , frightened her. She sped up casually.  
  
“Of course you’ll still try to blame people like Hermione.” Harry snorted and raised his mug of butterbeer to his lips.  
  
“I was saying that Muggleborns had an _equal_ share of blame to pure-bloods in this mess,” said Malfoy, waving one hand through the air as if that would sweep the cobwebs of misunderstanding out of the way. “Not a larger one. And no nasty incident has happened between them in months, did you realize that? But the papers still keep running stories about the ones that _did_ , and so people distrust every gesture of trust or good-will that’s made. We’re not learning because we’re still thinking too much about the past and not about the future, even though we say that’s not the case.”  
  
Ginny stepped up behind Harry and curved her arm around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. Harry looked up at her in surprise, then grinned and kissed her. “Hullo, Gin.”  
  
Ginny kept her eyes on Malfoy whilst they kissed. Malfoy’s glare was narrow and full of poisonous hatred, and yes, it was directed at her. Ginny wanted to roll her eyes. Malfoy’s single-minded pursuit of Harry, for months now, was rather strange. There were other single celebrities in the wizarding world he could have attached himself to, most of them war heroes, who would have been better-prepared to believe his sob story.  
  
“Well, maybe there’s something in what you say,” Harry went on to Malfoy, keeping his hand on top of Ginny’s, when the kiss was done. “But I think we have excellent reason to mistrust people like you. You’ve talked about gestures, but that’s all they are. I haven’t seen them backed up by anything substantial yet.”  
  
Malfoy smiled tightly. “As a matter of fact, I’m about to open the first primary school for Muggleborn _and_ pure-blood children in Britain.”  
  
Harry stared at him, his jaw dropping. Ginny tightened her hold on his shoulder. It was never a good sign when Harry was this intrigued by someone who wasn’t her. “R-really? I’d heard of opening primary schools so that Muggleborn children can learn about wizarding culture before they come to Hogwarts, but—“  
  
“Those will only perpetuate the problem, separating pure-bloods and Muggleborns,” said Malfoy, and touched his fingertips together. “But yes. This one will invite the children of both sides, and I’ve put up my own money to back it. It’ll open in Hogsmeade at the start of the autumn term.”  
  
Harry was silent, shaking his head now and then, as if trying to shake off a dream. Ginny was rooting for him to do it. Instead, though, he put out a hand and clenched it on Malfoy’s arm for a moment. “Well, I’ll be looking to see if this comes true,” he said.  
  
Malfoy put his own hand over Harry’s, and for just a moment, his eyes flashed up to Ginny’s. She was startled to see the triumph in them, and wanted to laugh. Malfoy _still_ didn’t understand the little things. The school was a grand gesture, yes, just the sort of thing Harry probably needed to convince himself Malfoy was a decent bloke now, but it wouldn’t hold Harry’s attention in the face of the thousand small things she and Harry did to renew their bond every day.  
  
“It will,” Malfoy said, and his eyes burned as he hurled the challenge at Ginny.  
  
*  
  
The school thrived.   
  
Ginny couldn’t really wish that it didn’t, of course, especially since Malfoy invited Harry for a tour and Harry brought Ginny with him without thought. He kept his arm around Ginny’s shoulders as Malfoy showed them room after room of brilliantly-colored, neat desks, practice wands, complicated toys that the children needed to figure out, and enchanted mirrors that would tell them interesting tidbits about wizarding history and culture when tapped with one of the wands. Ginny wondered privately just _whose_ history was being told, but Harry seemed enthralled with it all, and laughed at Malfoy’s jokes.  
  
They halted in the middle of a large room dotted with more of the desks but with a large open space at the front; Malfoy claimed it was an area where the students could easily watch magical creatures. Harry was smiling by then, and he’d let go of Ginny to wander among the desks and stare down at them with a softened expression on his face. _He’s thinking how much better it would have been if he’d been able to go to primary school here_ , Ginny thought, but she knew Malfoy wouldn’t know that, no matter what piercing eyes he stared at Harry with.  
  
“You’ve done a good job, Malfoy, I have to admit that,” Harry said, tracing his hand over a carving that had already appeared on the desk closest to the far wall.  
  
Malfoy looked as if he’d been offered a glass of cool, sweet water when he was dying of thirst. Ginny experienced a body-deep shiver of unease, though neither of the men was looking at her and so neither noticed. What did he _want_ from Harry?  
  
“I’m glad you feel that way, Potter,” Malfoy said then. “I was going to ask you about donating money to the school.”  
  
Ginny relaxed. _Of course_. Malfoy might have given up on the idea that Harry would date him and help him get back into proper society that way, but he could still want to use Harry’s vaults and fame for his own ends.  
  
“I’d love to,” said Harry, and walked over to Malfoy, who had files of expenses ready to show him. Malfoy spoke with a ringing resonance in the back of his voice that Ginny had never heard before. Well, let him. He wouldn’t seduce Harry away from her without a lot of understanding he’d never possess.  
  
Malfoy still stood closer to Harry than necessary and touched him unnecessarily on the shoulder and cheek several times. Harry never reacted other than to lift an eyebrow and, once, step away from Malfoy. Ginny waited, uncomplaining, and Harry noticed when he came back to her and wrapped an arm around her outside the school.  
  
“Thanks for waiting,” he whispered into her ear, and tweaked a strand of hair. “That can’t have been interesting for you.”  
  
Ginny kissed the side of his face. “It’s a worthy cause. And even if someone who was evil during the war founded it—people can change.”  
  
“That’s just what I was thinking.”  
  
She glanced quickly at Harry, and found him walking with his eyes on the distant sky, slate-gray with rain heading in, the bulk of Hogwarts and the lake in the direction he was looking in. Probably thinking how it would be, Ginny decided, when those first students from Malfoy’s primary school ventured into Hogwarts, a charming continuity of life that he’d never had. She slipped her arm through his.  
  
*  
  
Harry was unhappy. Ginny could see that, not in the things he did or said—Harry went out of his way since the war not to confess unhappiness, as if he assumed all the Weasleys were carrying an unendurable burden of grief since Fred’s loss and one more complaint from Harry would break them—but in the little things.  
  
He was using more hand sanitizer than normal, scrubbing as if he could work out the dirt of anger or guilt from the creases of his palms.  
  
He spent extra moments when he thought Ginny was asleep whispering that he loved her into her ear, instead of stroking her in silent complacency that she knew it already.  
  
He went flying on his replacement Firebolt and pulled off dangerous maneuvers he hadn’t tried since his days on the Quidditch Pitch at Hogwarts. And he nearly broke first his leg and then his arm. Ginny yelled at him for that, but he waved her off, his eyes fixed on the horizon the way they had been the day they visited Malfoy’s school.  
  
Ginny didn’t know exactly what was wrong. She only knew something was.  
  
That bothered her.  
  
Then came the day they passed Malfoy in Diagon Alley whilst they were shopping, and Malfoy nodded to both of them, though his eyes were only intent on Harry. Harry’s nod in return was curt, but his eyes followed Malfoy as he went up the street, locked on his back. Harry’s brow furrowed as if Malfoy were a puzzle he needed to figure out.  
  
And that terrified her.  
  
*  
  
“Look, I’m not blind.”  
  
Ginny froze with her hand on the front door and listened. She’d come home tired from a long practice with the Harpies and had looked forwards to the dinner Harry would have waiting.  
  
But no smells of cooking permeated the air, and from the agitated sound of his voice, Harry was speaking to someone else in the house. A firecall, perhaps, to Ron and Hermione? But Ginny didn’t know what reason he’d have to accuse them of calling him blind. She pulled the door to without shutting it and crept towards the drawing room.  
  
Malfoy’s voice came to her ears, with that faint distance that did indeed imply he was speaking from within a fireplace. “Well, yes, I was looking at you. No crime to look, is it? I’d never _dream_ of interfering between you and your lovely girlfriend.”  
  
“I don’t care if you planned on interfering,” Harry snapped. But Ginny knew the sound of his voice when he was really upset, and it had that little hitching crack in the middle of it which it had now. “I want to know why you wanted me. If it was in hope that I’d get you into the newspapers in a positive light again someday, you can forget it—“  
  
“In case you haven’t noticed, Potter, the papers have given up on reporting on you until you do something newsworthy again.” Malfoy’s voice changed incredibly then, from cold to soft and warm, like the pillow that Ginny liked to make sure was propped up behind Harry’s head when he went to sleep. “No, I want you because you’re bloody gorgeous and I would like very much to fuck you.”  
  
Harry snorted. Ginny could hear relief in the sound; she doubted Malfoy knew him well enough to hear it. “I might have known that would be it. Then—“  
  
“And because I can see the way you go off by yourself and stand in the corner during every party,” Malfoy said. “It’s not because you hate the dancing, or the other people there, or even the stares some idiots still give you. You want to see if anyone will notice and come to talk to you, to comfort you. It’s a test your girlfriend has never passed, has she?”  
  
Ginny cocked her head, thinking hard. She had never noticed Harry during that. He was always next to her, or dancing with her, or at worst on the other side of the room, talking to a friend—  
  
She thought.  
  
“You hate those parties anyway,” Malfoy went on, his voice gaining confidence, probably because Harry hadn’t told him to sod off. “I don’t know why you go to them.”  
  
“Ginny wants to,” said Harry. “And I love her. And I want to make her happy.”  
  
“Your happiness should be one of the things she cares for, too,” said Malfoy. “No one should get their own way all the time. And I’ve noticed that you touch her a lot, but with this little lost look on your face, as if you’re not sure she’ll like it. As if you’re not sure _you’ll_ like it.” His voice lowered, became sly in a way that made Ginny hate all Slytherins indiscriminately for a moment. “Tell me, Potter, how many times have you looked at her and thought that you’d rather be touching a man instead?”  
  
A choked gasp. From the sound, Harry had scrambled backwards and hit the footstool near the fireplace. Ginny closed her eyes and clung to the sound, knowing the next words would be important. If Harry accused Malfoy of being an idiot, if he laughed, if he spoke up in a spirited defense of Ginny—  
  
“How did you know?” Harry whispered.  
  
Ginny’s eyes shut until red and yellow sparks flew across her vision.  
  
“I notice little things, Potter,” Malfoy murmured soothingly. “Little things are usually the most important.”  
  
Ginny noticed dimly that a trickle of liquid was running down her palm, and knew her nails must have broken the skin.  
  
“It’s the little things you give to her, or try to give to her,” Malfoy said. “It’s the little things she doesn’t do for you, so much. How often does she rub your shoulders when you’re agitated? Go somewhere that you want to go, or stay in when you don’t feel like going out? Have sex the way _you_ want to have it?”  
  
 _So what if I’m always the one to propose sex_? Ginny thought furiously. _Harry grew up around prejudiced Muggles, he’s still awkward, they told him it wasn’t right to feel the way he does—_  
  
She didn’t like the conclusions those thoughts were leading her to. She cut them off.  
  
“I—she does a lot for me.”  
  
“Name one thing.”  
  
 _Now_ , Ginny thought. _Think about the linen in the cupboards, Harry, or how I fluff your pillows, or the way I hold your hand and listen when you can bear to tell me some fragment of your past and how you were abused._  
  
“I—she lets me have sex with her.”  
  
“That sex you’re so reluctant to have?” Malfoy laughed triumphantly. “Not even your denials are very convincing, Potter.”  
  
Silence. And a voice spoke very clearly in Ginny’s head.  
  
 _Fuck you, Harry._  
  
“I hadn’t thought about it,” said Harry, his voice muffled but eager, a rushing torrent of sound Ginny had heard before, during the times when some pain haunted him so strongly he had to confess it instead of keep it to himself. “I just thought that was the only kind of sex you could have, and—“  
  
“You have so much to learn, Potter.” Malfoy’s voice was eager, too. Ginny pictured a serpent under an apple tree lashing his tongue. “So much I can teach you. It’ll be like an adventure, like venturing into a new world.”  
  
“I might like that.”  
  
And that was the _shy_ eager tone Harry had never used with anyone but her.  
  
Ginny knew she had lost. Maybe Harry would stay with her for a little while and try to forget the conversation with Malfoy. Maybe he would fuck Malfoy on the side and lie to her about it. But either way, he would be using her to hide from what he really wanted. Ginny deserved better than that.  
  
 _Harry_ didn’t really understand the little things, either, she thought, as she went to remove her belongings from their bedroom, not caring if Harry heard her footsteps now. He didn’t understand that sometimes love was one of the ephemera, fleeting and melting from one day to the next.  
  
 **End.**


End file.
